What’s point of WFAN’s PC trio?
OTHER than creating a politically correct mix, it’s hard to figure how or why WFAN came up with Chris Carlin, Bart Scott and Maggie Gray as the trio to replace Mike Francesa.
Carlin, who began at WFAN in 1995, is a good utility man, a hole-plugger. But if he has the appeal to drive a drive-time show he’d have shown it by now.
Scott at first had a few good moments in his three years on CBS’s NFL studio show, but last offseason he was jettisoned, deemed expendable.
His uncivil off-field comportment as a Jets linebacker is TV/radio-irrelevant: The worst sports acts are now given the first broadcasting opportunities, then several more. Last month on ESPN-NY radio, Scott mocked Jay Cutler as a diabetic. Again, such “humor” now might help more than hurt.
Gray? I know nothing about her.
On the morning side, the permanent — for now — assignment of Gregg Giannotti to replace Craig Carton as Boomer Esiason’s co-host makes sense. Giannotti is thoughtful and genuinely clever, and already has raised Weekday Boomer’s I’m-with-Carton act above the obligatorily coarse.
Meanwhile, it’s now clear WFAN wants to be done with Francesa, his grandstanding public offer to stay on to rescue “the company” from ruin after Carton’s arrest dismissed as more selfinflating megalomania.
Still, his colossal self-delusions continue. Tuesday he claimed, “I’m a very good horse handicapper.” For all his years of on-air big-race handicapping, no one can recall him touting even one winner — before the race. Around New York’s tracks, where, “my seats are on the finish line,” he’s regarded as a bad joke.
Based on his recent weknow-better boastful gambling talk, I sense his next stop will be on former CBS colleague Brent Musburger’s SiriusXM radio gambling show.